The Life-Sized City Blog

Here's an interesting film by Mike Rubbo, documentarist turned bicycle advocate, who traveled north to Darwin, Northern Territory to explore the territory's unique bike helmet excemption law. The Northern Territory mandated helmet use along with the rest of the country in the 1990's. Like the rest of the nation, they saw cycling levels drop. In an attempt to get people to ride again, they repealed - or rather adjusted - the law and allowed for helmet-free cycling on footpaths and bike paths. The result? It's in the film and in Mike's post over at his SitUp-Cycle.com blog . It's been 20-odd years since I was last in Darwin. Maybe I could find a travel agency specialising in Rationality Destinations and get me a ticket to the 'top end's' bicycle paradise.

I've called Copenhagen and Amsterdam the Romulus and Remus of modern urban bicycle culture before. Another analogy applies to Denmark and Holland. These two countries are, in many ways, the Galapagos Islands of modern Bicycle Culture. We're different species of Darwin's Finch , yet we both love to fly on human-powered wheels. These two countries and the main city in each have evolved in each their own way over the past thirty or forty years. Many of the details are interesting anthropological observations that would probably be difficult to trace to the root. Here are some of them. Very generally, pannier bags are used in Holland whereas front baskets are the norm in Denmark, usually wicker. This is all very general, of course, but often when the Dutch do have a basket it's a sturdy plastic crate. And you do see pannier containers in Denmark, too. We all agree that carrying stuff on a bike is paramount, but it's fascinating to see how these two standard forms dev...